The world will need some time to get used to increased expressions of Chinese freedom of speech: If anything, this marks the end of coherent, centralised propaganda that some may be used to and discounts the fact that China is after smart power today, combining hard and soft power to build comprehensive national leverage. China was always about 1.3 billion narratives and now the multipolarity within are increasingly seeing the light of day.

“There appears to be a discord between this peaceful rise language and the comments from senior PLA officers,” said Li of the U.S. Naval War College. “There is no doubt about that.”

Will it result in unilateral action by these ‘hawkish’ military leaders? Unlikely. The compact between the role chairman of the Central Military Commission and the PLA, set in stone since the Deng days, is too strong to break.

‘An aerial photo shows the Chinese marine surveillance ship Haijian No. 51 (L) cruising as a Japan Coast Guard ship Ishigaki sails near Uotsuri island, one of the disputed islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea in this file photograph by Kyodo September 14, 2012.’Source – Reuters

(Reuters) – It was supposed to be a relaxed evening for a group of senior international military chiefs. Gathered at Melbourne’s Crown Casino, they had changed out of uniform for dinner and discussion.

China’s Lieutenant-General Ren Haiquan took the podium in a room overlooking the Yarra River last October 29 and began diplomatically enough. But as he neared the end of his speech, he went on the offensive.

“Some people” had ignored the outcome of World War Two and were challenging the post-war order, he told counterparts from 15 other nations. It was a pointed reference to Japan’s claim over islands in the East China Sea that Beijing insists are Chinese. Read the rest of this entry »

BBC makes a point that China’s new CMC leaders have a wholly different world view and set of life experiences. How would they express those difference on the world stage?

A noteworthy reminder too, that its armed forces swear allegiance to the party, and not the country. This means it cannot act unilaterally, and must remain one of the priorities of the new leadership. This covenant between party and military was set in place early on by Deng – it seems to remain intact today.

The bit about the black box has been somewhat cleared after Hu Jintao, at least on the surface, stated stepping down as CMC chairman during the 18th NPC.

As China’s ruling Communist Party prepares to hand power to a new generation of leaders, the BBC Beijing Bureau explains why changes at the top of the armed forces are also being closely watched.

China is ushering in a new generation of political leaders this week, as Communist Party leader Hu Jintao hands over power to successor Xi Jinping.

At the same time, a new group will take over the armed forces.

Amid a wave of retirements, at least seven new members will join China’s 11-member Central Military Commission (CMC), which oversees its armed forces – including the world’s largest standing army. Read the rest of this entry »

AsiaOne: Cafe in Singapore rides the wave of the East Asian island dispute by reaching out through a true-blue Singaporean, if not their primary past-time – food.

Singapore is multicultural by legacy, design and device, and expressed largely through the collective love of diverse foods – the more diverse the better – anyone who visits Singapore can attest to this – it is a global epicentre for cuisine in both high and low places. Peace Centre where this cafe is located is somewhat in the city, but nowhere near the central business district.

There is limited space in Singapore – we are all of 42km wide with barely 20km running north-south. It is the second smallest country in Asia and urban density stands about 12,000/sqkm. 40% of the island is thankfully zoned as a green belt because we cannot do without the rain catchment areas, for now. That also means more than 5+ million (3m citizens, 1m Permanent Residents, the rest imported workers) share a living space of around 400+sqkm. Of course that means if everyone had to stretch out their arms all at once it would be a problem. Most live high-rise, so at any one time the reality of that density is not apparent. Helps that it is a 24-hour city too, makes movement a little bit more spaced out.

Having spent the past three years on travelling cycles of – Australia – Singapore – China documenting and getting a first hand view of China I can almost acutely feel the clear impact population density makes. Australia is at 4/sqkm (in June 2010 it was 2.9), China at 116/sqkm, Singapore – as I mentioned, about 12,000. The difference is clear.

I’ve mentioned a few times over the course of the past two years that population density through a decade of opening floodgates, is becoming a serious problem but I digress. I think the reality that the authorities had no qualms allowing this name to be used for the business as positive. They banned Ministry of Sound from setting up a dance club in Singapore because they felt the Ministry name would resonate negatively with officialdom. They eventually relented after years of deliberation, but case in point.

And that there is a large body of Japanese and Taiwanese working and living in Singapore for decades, I know many of them frequent the area – with no qualms, I think here is where Singapore can be a useful model. Despite the ongoing online vitriol for the past two years, they qualify as growing pains – any host nation can attest to that, as you add more layers to your identity, some meet, other’s don’t, and some just need a bit more fine-tuning, talked over a meal perhaps!

This is a great read by Professor Brenda Yeoh from the National University of Singapore –Rapid Growth in Singapore’s Immigrant Population Brings Policy Challenge (Migration Information Source, April, 2012) if you’d like a pulse of Singapore’s challenge towards this aspect of globalisation – convergence of movement and with divergence needing attention of consensus, felt made more apparent in confined space.

Liu Jiangyong, a professor from Tsinghua University in Beijing, got things off to an unproductive start when he noted that China calls the archipelago the Diaoyu islands and said that while the Republic of China calls them the Diaoyutais, the ROC is “not a country.”

A symposium on the disputed Diaoyutai (Diaoyu or Senkaku) islands in the East China Sea was held Friday in Taichung in central Taiwan.

The symposium was co-sponsored by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Chung Hsing University, and brought together officials and scholars from Taiwan, China, Japan and the United States.

Philip Yang, deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council, who hosted the first meeting of the symposium, said sovereignty claims over the uninhabited island group can be explored through dialogue and law. Read the rest of this entry »

Businessweek: Sino-Japanese socio-economic faceoff manifests in auto industry over the Diaoyu/Senkaku spark + How not all foreign carmakers are yet to leverage on this gap.

Found in the comments section…

The onus is on Japan. Ishihara and Noda arbitrarily and insanely created this crisis by spitting on the 40 year old tacit agreement between china and japan that the island issue should be shelved so that other ties could develop. Japan is not only in the wrong here, but is the weaker party as it certainly needs China more than the reverse. Sure both countries will suffer, but Japan is certainly more vulnerable.

What we are seeing is genuine anger by chinese at all levels against a Japan that has never fully come to terms with their war crimes. Their leaders issue token verbal apologies one day and visit war shrines to convicted war criminals next. The CCP could not have foresaw or planned for the provocative action by Ishihara and Noda. Besides, they have enough problems to deal with at home than to have this issue as another headache. Japan needs to step up if it really wants better ties with China and a more peaceful and prosperous Asia in general. Online comment by Charles Custer

Anti-Japan demonstrators overturn a Japanese-made car in Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, China. Sales of Toyota and Honda vehicles nosedived in China during September as anti-Japanese sentiment flared over a territorial dispute. Photo – Businessweek, 2012

Toyota’s China sales plunged 49 percent last month, compared to September 2011. Honda was off 41 percent and Nissan was down 35 percent.

If the territorial dispute doesn’t subside soon, anti-Japanese sentiment in the world’s biggest auto market threatens to mar prospects for companies such as Nissan that have major hopes for the Chinese market. In May, Nissan’s chief executive officer, Carlos Ghosn, was in Hong Kong to open the global headquarters for the company’s luxury brand, Infiniti. The idea was to base the brand in Hong Kong, rather than back in Japan, in order to be closer to the vital Chinese market.

Automakers aren’t the only ones suffering from the impact of the islands dispute. Japanese airlines are hurting as fewer Chinese tourists travel to Japan, and China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, is staying away from IMF and World Bank meetings in Tokyo, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

Perspective of Sino-Japanese tension from China’s northern neighbours with a view from Japan-based James Corbett, editor of the Corbett Report website as US missile defence deal is signed – in name to watch over North Korea…

Latest update
China’s ‘unleashing’ of its fishing boats toward the area by lifting a moratorium. Diaoyu Islands fish are Chinese (Global Times, September 27, 2012)

Anti-Japanese protests have swept China, as the volatile dispute over who owns a series of islands escalates. The fallout over the archipelago dispute has been widening between Tokyo and Beijing since Japan decided to bypass China and buy the territories from private investors. This comes as Washington and Tokyo agreed to put a second anti-missile defence radar in Japan, claiming it’ll be focused on deterring North Korean aggression. But James Corbett, editor of the Corbett Report website who lives in Japan thinks the system will be deployed for all the wrong reasons.

With her sister ship now a floating integrated resort, the Varyag is reborn as Liaoning, almost eight years after she arrived in Chinese docks and 16 years after being bought for USD$20m.

September 25, 2012 marks her re-emergence as the symbolic flagship of Chinese maritime power at a time when China needs to assert its legitimacy to defend what it sees as national sovereignty.

Though in no position to match American naval projection due to its limited range and lack of combat readiness, it nevertheless marks a giant leap forward. Not quite a flexing of abrasive hard power yet, but certainly a symbolic referent for those on the Chinese side in Sino-Japanese tension, or potential focal point for Chinese nationalism.

Incidentally, the Chinese news reports are describing their carrier as 航母 (hang mu), a shortened version of 航空母舰 – literally translated – mother of the fleet.

Here is a CCTV report that paid particular attention on the mother ship’s combat readiness. It was most interesting hearing about the intense selection process for the crew. Unfortunately the 30min video is in Mandarin with no subtitles.

China’s Ministry of Defense said the newly named Liaoning aircraft carrier would “raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese navy” and help Beijing to “effectively protect national sovereignty, security and development interests”. In fact, the aircraft carrier, refitted from a ship bought from Ukraine, will have a limited role, mostly for training and testing ahead of the possible launch of China’s first domestically built carriers after 2015, analysts say. ANALYSIS | China aircraft carrier a show of force vs Japan (Interacksyon, September 26, 2012)

Just as Liaoning the province was created when existing northeastern provinces and municipalities were merged and integrated into a more powerful whole in 1954-55, so too “Liaoning” the carrier integrates a mix of building blocks into a warship that has the potential to bolster China’s regional influence—and also to force China’s leaders to confront perhaps the most complicated naval diplomacy questions in the PRC’s history.Introducing the ‘Liaoning’: China’s New Aircraft Carrier and What it Means (China Real-time Report by the Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2012)

– – –

An Aircraft Carrier of One’s Own
After much struggle, China finally has the massive naval vessel it always wanted.

Source – Li Tang, Xinhua, in Foreign Policy Magazine, 2012

China finally has its very own — ostensibly functional– aircraft carrier, named Liaoning. As Andrew Erickson and Gabriel Collins explain in a recent article for FP, the Chinese had to overcome multiple obstacles, and “All [those watching the Liaoning] must have felt the weight of history on their shoulders as they witnessed the unfulfilled ambitions of their civilian and military predecessors. This milestone was a long time coming.” The Liaoning was originally the Varyag, a Soviet vessel that was purchased by China from Ukraine. After years of retrofitting, as of Sept. 25 the Liaoning is finally entering service in the People’s Liberation Army Navy, but its capabilities are largely unproven and sea tests of the ship have stayed close to its home port in Dalian. Above, the Liaoning appears at the Dalian shipyard before being commissioned. (Foreign Policy, September 26, 2012)

From the Taiwan’s leading English-language paper (with 400,000 readers) China Post: toward a middle path and how this generation’s leaders still lack a common language on the Diaoyu dispute.

Japan should acknowledge that there is a dispute over the ownership of the islands. This does not mean giving up its own claim, or indeed the control that it has over them. But the first step to the resolution of a problem is the recognition of its existence.

Japan and China should then hold talks about their dispute. China’s claim is rooted in history, and it is by no means trivial. But, as they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law, and Japan has actually possessed these islands for most of the last century, so an international court may well rule in Tokyo’s favor.

“Our generation is not wise enough to find a common language on this question,” Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said in 1978 about his country’s territorial dispute with Japan. “Our next generation will certainly be wiser. They will certainly find a solution acceptable to all.”

In the meantime, Deng proposed, the two sides should jointly develop the area’s rich economic resources.

Thirty-four years later, there is still no common language on the disputed Diaoyu — or Senkaku — islands. In fact, the situation has reached critical proportions, with protests breaking out in dozens of cities across China over the Japanese government’s decision to nationalize the islands. Read the rest of this entry »

The right to know is the bedrock of every democracy. The Japanese public deserves to know the other side of the story. It is the politicians who flame public sentiments under the name of national interests who pose the greatest risk, not the islands themselves. Han-yi Shaw

I’ve had a longstanding interest in the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, the subject of a dangerous territorial dispute between Japan and China. The United States claims to be neutral but in effect is siding with Japan, and we could be drawn in if a war ever arose. Let me clear that I deplore the violence in the recent anti-Japan protests in China: the violence is reprehensible and makes China look like an irrational bully. China’s government should reign in this volatile nationalism rather than feed it. This is a dispute that both sides should refer to the International Court of Justice, rather than allow to boil over in the streets. That said, when I look at the underlying question of who has the best claim, I’m sympathetic to China’s position. I don’t think it is 100 percent clear, partly because China seemed to acquiesce to Japanese sovereignty between 1945 and 1970, but on balance I find the evidence for Chinese sovereignty quite compelling. The most interesting evidence is emerging from old Japanese government documents and suggests that Japan in effect stole the islands from China in 1895 as booty of war. This article by Han-Yi Shaw, a scholar from Taiwan, explores those documents. I invite any Japanese scholars to make the contrary legal case. Nicholas KristofRead the rest of this entry »

It would be a stretch to connect the notion of war with an old enemy with peaceful development.

These are old wounds, no doubt.

The initial ponderance – was this something the central government wants – this takes away the element of stability right in its backyard. And it openly gives away how the Chinese will react when provoked.

Beyond the dominant-hegemonic reading for a need for defensive buffer and the natural resources, has public sphere 2.0 accelerated deeply rooted public sentiment and overwhelmed central authority, in this act of nationalism – misplaced or not? In a time when some quarters of the PLA have already declared they are ready for a fight, let’s hope the middle path in a time of interdependence prevails.

See also the official statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the “purchase” of the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated Nan Xiaodao and Bei Xiaodao and the implementation of the so-called “nationalization” of the islands.

The Falun-gong connected Epoch Times offers a oppositional theory that a regime faction is behind stirring the sentiment – it uses digital photos of protesters wearing bullet-proof vests under cover as an example. This of course provides thoughtful fodder on the state of central authority. See Behind China’s Anti-Japan Protests, the Hand of Officials (updated September 18, 2012)

China-Japan protests resume amid islands row during a highly sensitive date for China, 18 September marks the day in 1931 as precursor to Japan’s eventual invasion. (from the BBC, September 18, 2012) BBC’s Martin Patience: “Some of the protesters are pelting the embassy with plastic bottles and then they’re moving on“

In Beijing on Tuesday there were two unusual occurrences. First, the city saw the largest protest in years take place outside of the Japanese Embassy. Thousands of Chinese took to the streets, angry over Japan’s claim to disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Second, there were clear blue skies from morning until night. The air pollution index was a staggeringly low 23, making it a beautiful day to call for war with an old enemy.

Protestors told ABC News they were there to claim territory that has been an inherent part of China since ancient times. One woman said, “We are here to declare our sovereignty over Japan!” Another man said, “If the nation needs us, we can all carry a gun to go to war.” Read the rest of this entry »